Category Game Design

All about game design.

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Game Design

This section is about designing the overall experience for the player.

• The Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 1: Documentation Guidelines for the Game Concept and Proposal 1999 article for Gamasutra by Tim Ryan
• Game Pitches repository for video game pitches and design documents - by Jon Jones
• Design Techniques and Ideals from The Art of Computer Game Design - by Chris Crawford
• The 400 Project - by Hal Barwood & Noah Falstein
• VideoGameDesignTerms
• Visual Semiotics - from Wikipedia<
  >Environments involve the player more if they have several layers of thinking behind their design.
• What is a visual metaphor? - from Answers.com

Level Design

This section is about designing game environments, also called "levels".

• Designing Action: Defining the Encounter in Games by Nathan Cheever, an excellent dissection of how successful game levels are designed and made. Recommended!
• Level design process by Benjamin Darling
• World of Level Design.com, a website/blog about game environment art and game level design for first person shooters.
• GDC 2011 Transcript: Motivating Players in Open World Games by Joel Burgess
• GDC 2008: Level Design Challenges in Crysis: The Long Journey to Open Worlds by Sten Huebler, Lead Designer, Crytek
• Dave's Mapper, an automatic mapping tool by David Millar
• Applying the Elements of Design and Principles of Design in Level Art by Jeremy Price
• Gears Of War Multiplayer Map Theory by Lee Perry
• GDC 2010: “What Happened Here?” – Environmental Storytelling by Harvey Smith and Matthias Worch
• Architecture: Form, Space, and Order ($) by Francis D.K. Ching
• Level Design Help Files, a collection of help sites for level design themed files - from the MapCore forums
• How To Develop A Map That Works - from The Valve Developer Community
• Map Planning - from the Unreal Wiki
• Ben's Small Bible of Realistic Multiplayer Level Design (PDF) by Benjamin Bauer
• What Is Level Design? - by Sérgio Duarte
• Level Design: Concept, Theory, and Practice ($) - by Rudolf Kremers (free preview: Chapter 7 - Reward Systems)
• The Hows and Whys of Level Design ($) - by Sjoerd 'hourences' De Jong (reviewed here)
• Unreal Engine 3 tutorials, game industry articles, level design/art/technical tutorials - by Sjoerd 'hourences' De Jong. A ton of tutorials and articles about designing levels with the Unreal Technology.
• LEVEL-DESIGN.org - by 'seir'. Information related to level art and design; for mappers, level designers, environment artists, and any kind of world designer.
• Maintaining the suspension of disbelief... Polycount forum thread. Discussion about the importance of using imperfection to create believable worlds.
• Level Design Video Tutorials - from 3DBuzz. A ton of useful tutorials and design tips about creating levels.

Units and Scale

The units and scale you use is very important. meshes should be built to snap to a unit-based grid, and physics calculations depend on certain scales. Fortunately, game editors usually have a scale setting you can use on import to convert from 3d modeler scale into proper game engine scale.

• UDN: Unreal Units - what units and scale to use for scenes in Unreal Engine. (Gears of War: 2 units = 1 inch, Unreal Tournament: 1 unit = 2 cm)
• CryENGINE SDK: Measurement Reference - what units and scale to use for scenes in CryEngine. (Crysis: 1 unit = 1 meter)
• Unity: Import Settings for Meshes - what units and scale to use for scenes in Unity. (Unity physics: 1 unit = 1 meter)

Game Design Blogs

• Life of a Design Monkey - a blog by Mark Davies, game designer at Ninja Theory
• Random Encounters in Imaginary Realms - a blog by an anonymous game designer
• Lost Garden - a blog by Danc, game designer
• CliffyB.com - a blog by Cliff Bleszinski, game designer at Epic Games
• Level Design - a blog by David Alexander Johnston, freelance game designer

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